Sunday, April 26, 2015

One of the
most damaging compromises of Allied communications security, during WWII, was the
case of Colonel Bonner
Fellers, US military attaché in Cairo during 1940-2. Fellers sent back to
Washington detailed reports concerning the conflict in North Africa and in them
he mentioned morale, the transfer of British forces, evaluation of equipment
and tactics, location of specific units and often gave accurate statistical
data on the number of British tanks and planes by type and working order. In
some cases his messages betrayed upcoming operations.

Fellers used
the Military Intelligence Code No11, together with substitution tables. The
Italian
codebreakers had a unit called Sezione Prelevamento (Extraction
Section). This unit entered embassies and consulates and copied cipher
material. In 1941 they were able to enter the US embassy in Rome and they
copied the MI Code No11. A copy was sent to their German Allies,
specifically the German High Command's deciphering department – OKW/Chi. The
Germans got a copy of the substitution tables from their Hungarian allies and
from December 1941 they were able to solve messages. Once the substitution
tables changed they could solve the new ones since they had the codebook and
they could take advantage of the standardized form of the reports. Messages
were solved till 29 June 1942 and they provided Rommel with so
much valuable information that he referred to Fellers as his ‘good source’.

The British
realized that a US code was being read by the Germans when they, in turn,
decoded German messages containing information that could only have come from
the US officials in Egypt. The Americans however were not easily convinced that
their representative’s codes had been ‘broken’ and it took them months before
they changed Colonel Fellers code.

The Germans
didn’t know that the Brits had solved messages enciphered on their Enigma
machine and thus had different ideas about who betrayed their codebreaking
success. Wilhelm Flicke, who worked in the intercept department of OKW/Chi wrote
in TICOM
report DF-116-Z about this case:

During the
war there was stationed at the Vatican a diplomatic representative of the
U.S.A. who stood in radio communications with Washington like any other
ambassador or minister. In a radiogram sent to Washington in June 1942,
enciphered by means of a diplomatic code book, one could read of a conversation
which representative of the Vatican had had with an Italian of high position.
During this conversation the Italian had mentioned that the Germans could read
the most important cryptographic system of the American Military Attaché. The
American representative had learned this at the Vatican through a Vatican
official and was therefore warning the American War Department against any
further use of this cryptographic system.

Weisser (a
cryptanalyst of OKW/Chi) also said that it was the Italians who betrayed the
German success in his report TICOM I-201:

Did the
Germans have a reason to mistrust their Italian allies?

It seems that
the answer is yes. On July 24 1942 Leland B. Harrison, US ambassador to
Switzerland, sent a telegram to assistant secretary Gardiner
Howland Shaw (who was in charge of the State Departments cipher unit)
warning him that an Italian official had met with Harold Tittmann (US
representative to the Vatican) and had told him that the US diplomatic code
used by the embassy in Egypt was compromised.

The Germans
clearly solved this message and thus attributed the end of the Fellers
telegrams to Italian treachery. However
looking at the dates it’s clear that this was not true. Fellers changed his
cryptosystem in June 1942, while this telegram was sent in July.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

During WWII
the German Army’s signal intelligence agency OKH/In 7/VI had signal
intelligence regiments assigned to Army Groups in order to supply them with
radio intelligence on Allied formations. Western Europe was covered by KONA 5
(Signals Intelligence Regiment 5), whose cryptanalytic centre NAAS 5 (Nachrichten
Aufklärung Auswertestelle - Signal Intelligence Evaluation Center) was based in
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a suburb of Paris.

In summer
1944 the Germans had to evacuate France and it seems that this unit tried to
destroy some of its reports but they didn’t have time to properly dispose of
them. Instead many reports were buried.

The US
authorities were able to locate the site and they recovered many of these
documents. A US report, dated 25 January 1945, says that about 2.000 sheets of
paper were recovered and were 30% readable. They included intercepts and
decrypts of the M-209 cipher machine, the War Department Telegraph Code,
possibly Combined Cipher Machine traffic, as well as the British Aircraft movement’s
Code and Syko system.

There was
even a message from Washington to the US Military Mission in China from 1942
sent via the gunboat TUTUILA.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

When the
United States entered WWII, in December 1941, US military and civilian agencies
were using several cryptologic systems in order to protect their sensitive
communications. The Army and Navy only had a small number of SIGABA
cipher machines so they had to rely on older systems such as the M-94/M-138
strip ciphers and on codebooks such the War
Department Telegraph Code, the Military
Intelligence Code and the War Department Confidential Code.

Another
system prepared for the Army was the Division Field Code. This was a 4-letter codebook
of approximately 10.000 groups and in the 1930’s several editions were printed
by the Signal Intelligence Service (1). However the introduction of the SIGABA
and especially the M-209
cipher machine made this system obsolete. Still it seems that the DFC was
used on a limited scale, during 1942-44, by the USAAF and by US troops
stationed in Iceland and the UK.

Examples of
DFC training edition No 2:

Solution
of DFC by German codebreakers

The German
Army and AF signal intelligence agencies were able to exploit this outdated
system and they read US military messages from Iceland, Central America, the Caribbean
and Britain. Most of the work was done by field units, specifically the Army’s
fixed intercept stations (Feste Nachrichten Aufklärungsstelle) Feste 9 at Bergen,
Norway and Feste 3 at Euskirchen, Germany.

According to
Army cryptanalyst Thomas Barthel several editions of the Division Field Code
were read, some through physical compromise (2):

The DFCs (Divisional Field Codes).

(a). DFC 15

In use in autumn 42, broken in Jan 43.
Traffic was intercepted on a frequency of 4080 Kos from US Army links in
ICELAND (stas at REYKJAVIK, AKUREYRI and BUDAREYRI). Stas used fixed call-signs
till autumn 43, and thereafter daily call -signs. This field code was current
for one month only. It was a 4-letter code, non-alphabetical, with variants and
use of "duds" (BLENDERN). It was broken by assuming clear routine
messages were the basis of the encoded text, such as Daily Shipping Report,
Weather Forecast etc.

(b) DFC 16

This was current for one month,
probably in Nov 42. It was similar tothe DFC 15 above.

(c) DFC 17

This was current from Dec 42 to Feb
43. About the latter date one or two copies of the table were captured. Very
good material was intercepted from ICELAND, also from 6 (?) USAAF links in
Central America, Caribbean Sea etc. Traffic was broken and read nearly up to
100%.

(d) DFC 21

This succeeded the DFC 17. Results
were the same.

(e) DFC 25

Current only in CARIBBEAN SEA area,
and read in part.

(f) DFC 28

This succeeded the DFC 21 in summer
43. It was used by the ICELAND links and the 28 (or 29) US Div in the South of
ENGLAND. The code was read, Now and again it was reciphered by means of
alphabet substitution tables ("eine Art von Buchstabentauschtafel")
changing daily. This method was broken because the systematic construction of
the field code was known.

(g) DFC 29

A copy of this table was captured in
autumn 43. It was never used, PW did not know why.

The War Diary
of the German Army’s signal intelligence agency OKH/In 7/VI shows that the DFC was
called AC 6 (American Code 6) and
several editions were solved in the period 1943-44. Most of the processing was
left to field units, with only a few messages solved by Referat 1 (USA section)
of Inspectorate 7/VI. The report of March 1943 says that the captured specimen
DFC 17 could be used to solve the preceding and following versions (since they
were constructed in the same way) and it showed that the code values retrieved
by field units and the central department through cryptanalysis were mostly
correct (3).

The Luftwaffe’s
Chi Stelle was also interested in the DFC and according to Dr. Ferdinand
Voegele, the Luftwaffe's chief cryptanalyst in the West, USAAF messages from
the Mediterranean area were read (4).

The 29th
Infantry Division and the invasion of Normandy

In 1943 the
M-209 cipher machine replaced the M-94 strip cipher as the standard crypto
system used at division level by the US Army, however older systems like the
DFC continued to be used for training purposes. The US military forces in
Britain took part in many exercises during the latter part of 1943 and early
1944, since they were preparing for the invasion of Western Europe and some of
their training messages were sent on the 28th edition of the Division Field
Code.

These
messages were intercepted and decoded by the German Army’s KONA 5 (Signals Intelligence
Regiment 5), covering Western Europe. NAAS
5 was the cryptanalytic centre of KONA 5 and its quarterly reports (5) show
that training messages from the US V Expeditionary
Corps and the 29th
Infantry Division were solved.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

During WWII the US Office of
Strategic Services station in Bern, Switzerland (headed by Allen Dulles)
recruited agents in occupied Europe and transmitted intelligence reports back
to Washington. Dulles collaborated in intelligence gathering activities with Gerald
Mayer, local representative of the Office
of War Information and General Barnwell Legge,
US military attaché to Switzerland.

Some of these reports were decoded by the Germans and the
Finns and we can see that they mention specific agents.

For example message No. 73 Bern-London of 4/4/1943, by
General Legge lists several German divisions stationed in France and says that
the information came from Source 206. Who was this mysterious
agent?

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

In WWII
Poland fought on the side of the Allies and suffered for it since it was the
first country occupied by Nazi Germany. In the period 1940-45 the Polish
Government in Exile and its military forces contributed to the Allied cause by
taking part in multiple campaigns of war. Polish pilots fought for the RAF
during the Battle of Britain, Polish troops fought in N.Africa, Italy and
Western Europe and the Polish intelligence service operated in occupied Europe
and even had agents inside the German High Command.

Although it
is not widely known the Polish intelligence service had spy networks operating
throughout Europe and the Middle East. The Poles established their own spy
networks and also cooperated with foreign agencies such as Britain’s Secret
Intelligence Service and Special Operations Executive, the American Office
of Strategic Services and even the Japanese
intelligence service. During the war the Poles supplied roughly 80.000
reports to the British intelligence services (1), including information on the
German V-weapons (V-1 cruise
missile and V-2 rocket) and reports from the German High Command (though
the agent ‘Knopf’) (2).

In occupied
France the intelligence department of the Polish Army’s General Staff organized
several resistance/intelligence groups tasked not only with obtaining
information on the German units but alsowith evacuating Polish men so they could serve in the Armed Forces.
These networks obviously attracted the attention of the German security
services and in 1941 the large INTERALLIE network, controlled by Roman Czerniawski, was
dismantled.

Another large
network was controlled by Zdzislaw Piatkiewicz aka ‘Lubicz'. The book ‘Secret History of MI6: 1909-1949’, p529 says
about this group: ‘Some of the Polish networks were very productive. One
based in the south of France run by ‘Lubicz' (Zdzislaw Piatkiewicz) had 159
agents, helpers and couriers, who in August and September 1943 provided 481
reports, of which P.5 circulated 346. Dunderdale's other organizations were
rather smaller’.

From German and British reports it seems that the radio communications
of the Polish spy groups in France (including the ‘Lubicz' net) were
compromised in the period 1943-44. Wilhelm Flicke who worked in the intercept
department of OKW/Chi (decryption department of the High Command of the Armed
Forces) says in ‘War Secrets in the Ether’ (3):

The Polish
intelligence service in France had the following tasks:

1.
Spotting concentrations of the Germany army, air force and navy.

2.
Transport by land and sea and naval movements.

3.
Ammunition dumps; coastal fortifications, especially on the French coast after
the occupation of Northern France.

4.
Selection of targets for air attack.

5.
Ascertaining and reporting everything which demanded immediate action by the
military command.

6. Details
regarding the French armament industry working for Germany, with reports on new
weapons and planes.

The Poles
carried on their work from southern France which had not been occupied by the
Germans. Beginning in September 1942 it was certain that Polish agent stations
were located in the immediate vicinity of the higher staffs of the French
armistice army.

In March
1943 German counterintelligence was able to deal the Polish organization a
serious blow but after a few weeks it revived, following a reorganization.
Beginning the summer of 1943 messages could be read. They contained military
and economic information. The Poles in southern France worked as an independent
group and received instructions from England, partly by courier, and partly by
radio. They collaborated closely with the staff of General Giraud in North
Africa and with American intelligence service in Lisbon. Official French
couriers traveling between Vichy and Lisbon were used, with or without their
knowledge, to carry reports (in the form of microfilm concealed in the covers
of books).

The Poles
had a special organization to check on German rail traffic to France. It
watched traffic at the following frontier points: Trier, Aachen, Saarbrucken,
München-Gladbach, Strassburg-Mülhausen and Belfort. They also watched the Rhine
crossings at Duisburg, Coblenz, Düsseldorf, Küln, Mannheim, Mainz,
Ludwigshafen, and Wiesbaden. Ten transmitters were used for the purpose.

All the
Polish organizations in France were directed by General Julius Kleeberg. They
worked primarily against Germany and in three fields:

1.
Espionage and intelligence;

2.
Smuggling (personnel);

3. Courier
service.

Head of
the "smuggling service" until 1.6.1944 was the celebrated Colonel
Jaklicz, followed later by Lt. Colonel Goralski. Jaklicz tried to penetrate all
Polish organizations and send all available man power via Spain to England for
service in the Polish Army.The
"courier net" in France served the "Civil Delegation", the
smuggling net, and the espionage service by forwarding reports. The function of
the Civil Sector of the "Civil Delegation" in France was to prepare
the Poles in France to fight for an independent Poland by setting up action
groups, to combat Communism among the Poles, and to fight against the occupying
Germans. The tasks of the military sector of the Delegation were to organize groups
with military training to carry on sabotage, to take part in the invasion, and
to recruit Poles for military service on "D-Day". The "Civil
Delegation" was particularly concerned with Poles in the German O.T.
(Organisation Todt) or in the armed forces. It sought to set up cells which
would encourage desertion and to supply information.

Early in
1944 this spy net shifted to Northern France and the Channel Coast. The Poles
sought to camouflage this development by sending their messages from the Grenoble
area and permitting transmitters in Northern France to send only occasional
operational chatter. The center asked primarily for reports and figures on
German troops, tanks and planes, the production of parts in France, strength at
airfields, fuel deliveries from Germany, French police, constabulary,
concentration camps and control offices, as well as rocket aircraft, rocket
bombs and unmanned aircraft.

In
February 1944 the Germans found that Polish agents were getting very important
information by tapping the army telephone cable in Avignon.

In March
1944, the Germans made a successful raid and obtained important radio and
cryptographic material. Quite a few agents were arrested and the structure of
the organization was fully revealed.

Beginning
early in June, increased activity of Polish radio agents in France became
noticeable. They covered German control points and tried to report currently
all troop movements. German counterintelligence was able to clarify the
organization, its members, and its activity, by reading some 3,000 intercepted
messages in connection with traffic analysis. With the aid of the Security
Police preparations were made for the action "Fichte" which was
carried out on 13 July 1944 and netted over 300 prisoners in all parts of France.

This,
together with preliminary and simultaneous actions, affected:

1. The
intelligence service of the Polish II Section,

2. The
smuggling service,

3. The
courier service with its wide ramifications.

The
importance of the work of the Poles in France is indicated by the fact that in
May 1944 Lubicz and two agents were commended by persons very high in the
Allied command "because their work was beginning to surpass first class
French sources." These agents had supplied the plans of all German defense
installations in French territory and valuable details regarding weapons and
special devices.

Flicke’s
statements on the solution of Polish intelligence codes in 1943 can be
confirmed, in part, by the postwar interrogation of Oscar Reile, head of Abwehr counterintelligence in occupied France.
In his report 'Notes on
Leitstelle III West Fur Frontaufklarung' (4) he said about the Polish intelligence
communications:

CODE-CRACKING
BY FUNKABWEHR

107.
Leitstelle III West also benefited from the work done by the code and cipher
department of Funkabwehr, which studied all captured documents connected with
codes and ciphers, with the object of decoding and deciphering the WT traffic
of agents who were regarded as important and could not be captured.

108.
Valuable results were often obtained by Funkabwehr. During the winter of 43/44,
the above-mentioned code and cipher department succeeded in breaking codes used
by one of the most important transmitters of the Polish Intelligence Service in
FRANCE. For months thereafter WT reports from Polish agents to ENGLAND were
intercepted and understood; the same applied to orders they received from
ENGLAND. The Germans also learnt that important military plants were known to
the Allies, and a considerable number of names and cover names of members of
the Polish Intelligence Service were discovered.

Flicke also
said ‘Early in 1944 this spy net shifted to Northern France and the Channel
Coast. The Poles sought to camouflage this development by sending their
messages from the Grenoble area and
permitting transmitters in Northern France to send only occasional operational
chatter’. This statement can also
be confirmed by other German and British reports.

The monthly reports of Referat 12 (Agents section) of the German Army’s
signal intelligence agency OKH/In 7/VI (5) mention spy messages from Grenoble
in May and July 1943 as links top and 71c (9559, Grenoble), so it
is possible that these are the Polish intelligence messages that Flicke says
were solved in summer 1943. Unfortunately these reports are difficult to
interpret since they use codewords for each spy case.

More
information is available from messages found in the captured archives of
OKW/Chi (since Chi also worked on Polish military intelligence codes). The
British report DS/24/1556 of October 1945 (6) shows that messages on the link
London-Grenoble were solved and these were enciphered with the military attaché
cipher POLDI 4.

The same
report mentions that in August 1944 the British authorities became aware that
decoded Polish military intelligence messages from Grenoble were sent from
Berlin to the Abwehr station in Madrid, Spain:

‘In August 1944, a series of decoded Polish
‘Deuxieme Bureau’ messages between London and Grenoble were seen by us in ISK
traffic being forwarded by Berlin to Abwehr authorities at Madrid. The time lags
varied between 5 and 43 days. S.L.C. Section at headquarters informed us that
this was a properly controlled leakage, and that no cypher security action was necessary
or desirable.’

Some of these
messages can be found in the British national archives (7):

It is
interesting to note that the response of the higher authorities was ‘this was a properly controlled leakage, and
that no cypher security action was necessary or desirable’, without however
giving more details.

Conclusion

During WWII
the Polish intelligence service operated throughout Europe and was able to
gather information of great value for the Western Allies. These activities were
opposed by the security services of Nazi Germany and in this shadow war many
Allied spy networks were destroyed and their operatives imprisoned or killed. In
their operations against Allied agents the Germans relied not only on their own
counterintelligence personnel but also signals intelligence and codebreaking.
Fixed and mobile stations of the Radio Defense Corps (Funkabwehr) monitored
unauthorized radio transmissions and through direction finding located their
exact whereabouts.

The Agents
section of Inspectorate 7/VI and OKW/Chi analyzed and decoded enciphered agents
messages, with the results passed to the security services Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst.
Both agencies solved Polish intelligence communications including traffic from Switzerland,
France, Poland,
the Middle
East and other areas. The Polish intelligence networks in France were an
important target for the Germans not only because they were a security risk but
also because they would undoubtedly assist the Allied troops in their invasion
of Western Europe in 1944. In that sense the compromise of the communications
of the Polish military intelligence network was an important success since it
allowed the Germans to dismantle parts of this group and also learn of what the
Allied authorities wanted to know about German strengths and dispositions in
France.

According to
Flicke the success started in summer 1943 and from the British reports we can
see that they continued to solve the traffic till summer ’44 (when France was
liberated). It is not clear of when the Brits first learned that the Polish
communications had been compromised and what measures they took to prevent the
leakage of sensitive information. It is also not clear of whether they chose to
inform the Poles about all this…